Conrad of Hochstaden, Archbishop of Cologne
Conrad of Hochstaden (German: Konrad I von Hochstaden) (c. 1205 - 1261) was the Archbishop of Cologne from 1238 until 1261. Early life Conrad was a son of Count Lothar I of Hochstaden. Archbishop of Cologne Conrad was elected the Archbishop of Cologne on 30 April 1238, after usurping the office of provost of the cathedral. After Conrad failed to appear in Rome for trial in regards to the usurption, he was excommunicated and an interdict was enacted on the archdiocese. Soon after Conrad abandoned the provostship and the excommunication was lifted. In August he travelled with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II Stupor Mundi to Brescia with the Imperial regalia. However, due to the large burden of debt which the archdiocese owed to Italian bankers after the rule of Henry I of Mulnarken, Conrad switched in Autumn of the following year to the Papal camp. From 1239 until 1244 Conrad led the archdiocese into a series of territorial wars with the powerful duchies of Brabant, Jülich, Limburg, and Berg, and the County of Sayn, many of the wars being fought for personal reasons. These culminated in the defeat at the Battle of Lechenich where Conrad was taken prisoner by the Dukes of Jülich and was held in the castle Nideggen from February until November 1242. By the mid 1240s Conrad had transformed the Archbishpric of Cologne into the most powerful German princedom, and he became active in the politics of the empire. He actively supported Count William II of Holland, in his campaign to be the German king, although he had little involvement with the claims of Landgrave Henry Raspe Hesse and Thuringia, or Duke Richard of Cornwall in particular. The support of Conrad was often pivotal because of the position the Archbishops of Cologne had in the elections and coronations of the German kings. In 1248 Conrad began annexing outlying territories of the Counts of Sayn. In 1249 Conrad was elected the Archbishop of Mainz, although he was forced to decline by Pope Innocent IV who wanted to limit Conrad's power. Between 1254 and 1255 he also came into dispute with King William II of Holland over the Lower Rhine. The Westphalian and Lower Rhenish nobility became dissatisfied with the arrangement and the power of Conrad, and the Count of Jülich and the Bishop of Paderborn formed an anti-Colognian coalition. This led Conrad to begin a stronghanded campaign to gained dominance in Westphalia to secure peace, and in 1252 he also entered into conflicts with the city of Cologne. In 1258 the arbitrator Albertus Magnus ruled that the city of Cologne gained nominal independence, although the archbishop retained ultimate religious and temporal power over the city. Conrad broke the arbritration with the city in 1259 through jurors and councillors from the guilds and not the patricians of the city. In 1260 he defeated a patrician-led rebellion, and imprisoned the rebel leaders although at Godesberg they were not condemned to death. In early 1261 he increased the territory of the archbishopric through the inheritance of the County of Hochstaden after the death of his nephew Count Conrad, as per an agreement with the rest of his family in 1246. Conrad died in 1261 and was buried in Cologne Cathedral. Category:List of European Bishops Category:Diocese in Germany Category:Archbishop